Cafe Society

It’s 9 a.m. Monday at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Los Feliz. There are 22 people in line, the mob of bleary, pre-caffeinated bohemians snaking out the door and onto a patio littered with newspaper and grayed with cigarette ash that appears sandblasted onto every surface. Five minutes later, only seven people have received their lattes and cappuccinos, the servers bump into one another trying to fill the orders, and the increasingly exasperated customers roll their eyes at one another as if to ask, do I really want to wait another 10 minutes for a cup of scalding coffee and a bloated scone?

Welcome to the L.A. coffee shop, circa 2001. In just over a decade, coffee has been transformed from solitary morning ritual to all-day group activity, with leagues of beleaguered locals downing morning eye-openers, lunchtime lattes and after-work blended extravaganzas. The phenomenon can be traced, not coincidentally, to the launch of L.A.’s first Starbucks at the Beverly Connection, in 1991. At the time, Starbucks seemed a paradigm of efficiency: The place was clean and cute, the robust coffee served in a flash. Like other cities, Los Angeles cried, hooray for Starbucks! The chain answered by opening a few more locations, then a few more--they seemed to mushroom overnight, conveniently and cleverly filling a need we didn’t even know we had.

Now we’re hooked. As of 2000, there were more than 700 Starbucks outlets in California, more than 3,500 worldwide, doing more than $2.2 billion in business. As Starbucks grows, so does our evident dependence on it and the umpteen competitors it’s spawned; on one block of Ventura Boulevard, there’s a Starbucks, a Peet’s, a Seattle’s Best Coffee and a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, all packed at peak hours. And yet with the coffeehouse boom has come what many see as an overall decline in quality. Where grabbing one for the road once seemed novel and handy, it’s now become a grueling test of one’s patience, not to mention one’s taste buds.

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11:30 A.M. SUNDAY, STARBUCKS, VERMONT AND HOLLYWOOD

There are a dozen people waiting for coffee, the place is dark and loud, the service glacial. A croissant is ordered; once in hand, it’s clear this is a roll in the shape of a croissant, which prompts for the umpteenth time a desire to call Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz with an offer to teach the honchos some new recipes. The half-and-half is gone, the coffee station a mess and the uncomfortable outdoor seating area made unbearable by corporately approved Muzak, some folk-chick warbling about birds flying out of her heart, an nth-degree irritation that makes one wish for jazz or punk or calliope, anything but this. Steven Hamblin, Starbucks marketing specialist for Greater L.A. and Central California, bristles at the idea of a less than perfect Starbucks, though he concedes it’s sometimes a struggle to balance the “needs of the company with the needs of the customer” and that it’s never tougher than during the morning rush. But the company’s focus, he says, is connecting with the customers: “We know their names; it’s all about making them feel comfortable.”

Why do we put up with it? Are we so starved for caffeine that we’ll jostle like hogs in a pen for the privilege of paying $4 for a cup of coffee? Or is that cup merely a prop; hold it and it gives one something to do while using the coffeehouse for one’s real objective. The coffeehouse is cunning, and malleable, able to supply companionship, or solitude; a place to work, or procrastinate; a center of commerce, or access to an arts community. Where else can we find such egalitarian ground, a nexus that allows us to interact with the community in a city famous for its lack of a common center, for $4 a pop?

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4 P.M. FRIDAY, THE COFFEE BEAN & TEA LEAF, BARRINGTON AND SAN VICENTE

The large outdoor patio is packed with a dazzling flock of people in their 20s and 30s. Girls wear stripy sundresses and stilettos; guys sport casually mussed workout gear; all chatter on cell phones while playing looky-loo with the other patrons. The line is long, but no one seems to mind, as this gives them time to chat up their neighbors. Two exchanges of phone numbers are spotted, as is one woman who, when a Mercedes convertible beeps at her from the curb, runs up and leans in.

Does she know the guy? “No, but I saw him online,” she says, tucking his business card in her Kate Spade clutch.

“Coffee shops have replaced bars as the new meeting place,” says David Wygant, author of the dating primer “Meet Somebody Today.” “You may go out to a club on Friday and not meet anybody, but on Saturday morning between 9:30 and 11, you know your local coffee shop is going to be full of single people, talking, reading, networking. It’s a very casual gathering spot, where it’s OK to approach someone and have a conversation. And people are acting real; they’re not under the influence of alcohol. You can make up for your missed opportunities at the bar at the coffee shop.”

Does Wygant think people in the market to meet somebody care about the quality of the coffee?

“No, not at all,” he says. “If I tell a guy, ‘There are beautiful women to be had at the Coffee Bean in Brentwood,’ he doesn’t care what the coffee tastes like. Coffee Bean doesn’t have the best coffee; Peet’s does. But Coffee Bean attracts the best-looking crowd.” Though the coffee shop may be adept at addressing all our needs, what about taste? Although there are plenty of folks who profess to actually like mint and mocha and raspberries in their coffee, real coffee lovers find flavorings anathema. For them, there are only two choices: Grind your own beans and know your brew is fresh, or head to Peet’s. Peet’s is a chain started in Berkeley in 1966 by Alfred Peet, one of whose early acolytes was Schultz, who worked for Peet’s before joining Starbucks, and who, in his book, “Pour Your Heart Into It,” cites Peet as “the spiritual grandfather of Starbucks.”

Starbucks continues to colonize America and the world, and in the process, one might argue, it has colluded in the decline of its product. (A new Starbucks is set to open in Vienna, the birthplace of the coffeehouse; and the company is currently working with Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s corporation to develop stores in “underserved” communities.) Peet’s, on the other hand, has only about 60 locations, in four states, including nine in Southern California. The concentration and care put into every cup show.

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11 A.M. SATURDAY, PEET’S, VENTURA AND LAUREL CANYON

The air is fragrant with coffee, and the room quiet: no jostling, plenty of servers dispensing from three stations so that no one waits more than a minute for their an orders. There are comfortable places to sit; newspapers sit neatly in racks; and a placard on the door announces employment opportunities, for “the best coffee beans, the best human beans.”

“It’s just better coffee, and a better variety,” says Din Johnson, a coffee connoisseur who home-roasts his own beans. “What I really like is that the people who work here know about coffee if you ask them. And the places are always clean and nice, not dumpy and disgusting. I think people who really like coffee come here instead of Starbucks; it’s like In-N-Out Burger compared with McDonald’s.”

“We’re trained to learn about coffees, and their different regions of origin,” says manager Belinda Elias, who’s been with Peet’s for 4those years and mentions that employees (also known as “Peetniks”) undergo continual training. “We’re very into what we do, and we have high standards. We brew every half-hour, regardless; if we have coffee left [in the dispensers] that hasn’t been drunk, we throw it out.” Does she think her customers appreciate this?

“Big time,” she says. “They come up to me a lot and thank me.”

“Thank you so much,” says a woman, who appears as if on cue. “My dad really appreciated it. You made his day.”What was that about?

“We choose a regular customer and give them free drinks all week. She’s the customer this week,” says Elias, pointing to a framed photo of the woman, sitting atop the muffin case. “Her dad is in from Boston, so we gave him a free coffee as well.” Did Elias maybe slip the woman a fiver to come over at that exact moment? Elias laughs and offers a coffee. It has kick but no bite, depth but no residue. In short, it’s mellow and powerful, if that’s not oxymoronic.

OK, so that’s a peaceful Saturday morning. What about during the weekday rush, when you need to get in and out, en route to work? Chances are you’ll wind up at Starbucks, because they’re everywhere, yes, but also because the name recognition triggers a Pavlovian response: must ... drink ... coffee ... now. Starbucks’ additional coup has been to offer as many ancillary coffee products as you can shake a stirrer at: Need an espresso machine? Starbucks has its own line of Barista brewers. An instant Frappuccino? They’re at 7-Eleven. And wouldn’t some chocolate-covered blueberries make a nice stocking stuffer?

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9:30 A.M. TUESDAY, STARBUCKS, 3RD AND FAIRFAX

Two dozen people look at their watches, waiting for their morning cup behind someone ordering a half-caf with low-fat, no, make that nonfat, and extra foam ... or maybe whipped cream? The order is so complicated, one wants to shout, “It’s coffee, for heaven’s sake, not couture!” And to wonder why they don’t open an express line for just coffee. “What I can’t stand,” says one woman to her friend, “is they make you wait 15 minutes and then want a tip.”

She passes the time thumbing a packet of biscotti sitting on a kiosk displaying Starbucks impulse buys: T-shirts, teddy bears and travel mugs; pounds of coffee, baskets of coffee and coffee samplers; chocolate-covered pretzels and chocolate-dipped espresso beans. Each product is emblazoned with the Starbucks logo.

“I’ll have a chocolate brownie Frappuccino,” says a construction worker taking a break from erecting the Grove, the mega-mall being built on the east end of the Farmers Market. He and his buddy are old-school, wearing hard hats and carrying walkie-talkies. Why do they choose to wait in line rather than grabbing a cup of joe from, say, the French Crepe Company, 20 feet away, where there are exactly two people?

“If you want something special, like a Frappuccino, they don’t have that anywhere else,” says the guy. “It’s Starbucks.”

Aren’t they sort of expensive?

“Yeah, they are,” says his buddy, handing over $3.95 for his drink. “But it’s like anything: If I’m working, I have yard care service; if I’m not, I mow the lawn.”

“If we’re drilling, we’re drinking,” says the first guy, as he heads back to the site.

Their devotion to specialty drinks prompts eavesdropping on what others are ordering: triple-mint nonfat latte; mocha chip Frappuccino; gingerbread decaf. Does anyone drink coffee-flavored coffee?

“I just get regular,” says Andy Sessions, who spends three hours every weekday morning holed up here with his laptop.

“I’m a screenwriter, of course,” he says, with a self-deprecating smile. “If I’m at home, I can be easily distracted--do the dishes, watch TV, anything. If I sit here at this table for three hours, I get three solid hours in.” Sessions knows a little something about coffee, having once owned a coffeehouse in Portland, Ore.

“It was in the early ‘90s, and it was kind of in response to everyone thinking Starbucks was so great, whereas I hated the stuff. I thought, I’ll show them what’s good. I had my coffee flown in from North Beach in San Francisco; the quality of coffee was very important to me at the time. Now, I’ll drink whatever,” he says, reaching for his grande. The reason he comes to Starbucks and not some of the mom-and-pop places around town is because they aren’t as good. “They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s hard to find anyone down here who can make a good cappuccino. If they took a week and learned about coffee, maybe they’d know how to make it, but they don’t.... They brew coffee and put it into a pump pot and let it fester. It’s almost as though a lot of these places have contempt for the customer. I think the customer would know good coffee from bad, but they are not given the choice.”

Of course, we are given choices, though they are sometimes hard to find amid the corporate landscape. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the spread of Starbucks and its ilk seems to have triggered a surge in coffeehouses, places like Marie et Cie in Valley Village, a slip of a store serving strong French coffee that, at 9 a.m., teems with mommies having just dropped off their tots at local preschools, and the Coffee Table in Silver Lake, where every day dozens of writers tap on laptops while drinking very good coffee in a funky and relaxed setting--the sort of neighborhood-centric places that, one might fret, will soon be sacrificed at the altar of big business. And yet both have opened in the past five years. The fuel driving the coffeehouse explosion is us; and though it would be nice, certainly, to linger over our lattes for hours, the reality is most of us are not people with time on our hands; our incessant whining about over-scheduling and exhaustion has been picked up, with the chains the most readily available relief stations.

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4:30 P.M. FRIDAY, THE COFFEE BEAN & TEA LEAF, ROBERTSON AND BEVERLY

Outside, there’s someone dressed as a cup of coffee waving his arms at passing motorists. Inside, the room sounds like a cement mixer, what with the cappuccino frothing, the iced-blendeds blending. A door to the back room is open, making visible a pile of clothes, a toppled ladder and some boxes. There are straw papers on the floor; empty trays with a few crumbs from what must have been holiday treats; and balloons, though the room is far from festive. In short, it’s unpleasant, not someplace you’d want to linger with a cup of coffee, and yet half the place is full of people just off work.

The other half is taken up with cups, coffees, platters and thermoses, each available for a price. A sign reads: “Chairs for sale. Interested? Inquire at counter.” It’s leather and wood, something one might, under duress, purchase at Ikea. And yet people are looking, picking up presents, as if to say, we’re here, might as well grab something for Aunt Sally.

“I think it’s unique, and it might come in handy when you’re traveling,” says a woman, carrying a $30 thermos to a register. “I come in here about twice a week--I work at Cedars. When you find people who enjoy good coffee, getting a gift from the same place they go to adds to their enjoyment.”

Behind her, a young Japanese man with a huge blond shag tunes up his guitar. It’s Eishun Fukai’s first gig at this Coffee Bean, “though I’ve worked others, in Manhattan Beach, Redondo, Santa Monica.” Playing what he calls “classical, fusion and confusion,” Fukai claims to have garnered a following through his Coffee Bean gigs. “I have about 10 or 20 people that come in just to see me and be friends. They say my playing enhances the atmosphere. I have a master’s from USC, so my customers don’t have to pay $20 and go to Royce Hall to hear classical music; they can come here for free.”

“We need more of this kind of art scene at coffeehouses,” says Ray Reyes, who’s just hanging out. “I like the old days, where coffee shops had a beat-up couch and a lot of artists. The coffee may not have tasted great, but it was an authentic scene. I mean, do you see anyone else here besides him who’s creative? No.”

Concurrent with corporate coffee’s rise, the “Beat” generation of coffeehouse died in L.A.. There used to be the Pik-Me-Up, on 6th and La Brea, where all manner of artists congregated to play or just lie about in several hippy-dippy rooms, but that closed in the early ‘90s. The Onyx, on Vermont in Los Feliz, survived until the late ‘90s and was as notorious for its late-night poetry slams as it was for its sketchy service. To wit: A cup of coffee was once ordered, after which the apparently stoned-out-of-her-gourd server disappeared into the kitchen and washed dishes for 10 minutes. When asked about the coffee, she said, “Oh, yeah, coffee ... “ and turned up the radio.

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1 P.M. SATURDAY, AROMA COFFEE AND TEA CO., TUJUNGA AND MOORPARK

“If you’d told me 10 years ago, and notwithstanding the scene in Europe, that there could be a market created where people would sit around and schmooze and read and pay premium prices for coffee, I would have told you, you’re nuts,” says Lloyd Segan, sitting in Aroma’s snug, sparkling-clean cafe, made festive with sprigs of holly and fragrant with sprays of white lilies.

“In our section of the Valley, the proliferation is unbelievable,” says his wife, Allison. “This place is the opposite of the chains. It’s intimate; the people are nice. My book club meets here.”

Aroma shares the same circulatory system as Portrait of a Bookstore, the cafe leading to a labyrinth of patios and cozy rooms, one with a fireplace, all giving off a very New England vibe. Though a bit precious, what with the selection of antique bone china sharing space with bestsellers, the tone is the antithesis of rush-rush; one gets the feeling one could linger for hours with a cup of Aroma’s well-balanced coffee and receive only doting smiles from the staff. The tables are full of folks scribbling on screenplays and becalmed bibliophiles and, this morning, a woman and her therapist who, over eggs, discuss the best way to discover “her inner woman.”

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9:30 A.M. WEDNESDAY, CAFE TROPICAL, SUNSET AND SILVER LAKE

If Aroma is a genteel English lady, Cafe Tropical is her bare-knuckled Latin cousin--so tough he doesn’t even need a restroom, which the Tropical does not have. The room is so unadorned, so positively non-resort Caribbean, one half expects a rooster to pop through the door. Patrons, many of them local artists, come to this Cuban bakery for coffee, no froufrou chaser. OK, maybe a guava and cream cheese pastry (best in the city) or a fresh-squeezed carrot juice. And yet the scene is far from macho: People talk from counter to table, everyone knows everyone else’s name; Cheers in a coffee shop.

“They see me walking across the street, and they get my coffee ready,” says Victor, who comes to the Tropical almost every day. “I like it here, because it’s my way of being in the street. In L.A., I’m at home, in my car or my office. Here, I can just sit back and hang out, see what people are doing.”

Mentioning that he’s a psychotherapist, Victor adds that he enjoys the Tropical because “it allows me to be here, but not really be here. People talk to me all day long. Here, I can listen if I want, but I don’t have to. Oh, and the coffee is really good.”

What makes the coffee so good?

“It’s strong. We use Gavina,” says Heidi, who’s been working at the Tropical for four years. “The espresso is real black, with a little foam on top. Most people get the con leche, though.”

The cafe con leche is astoundingly good, strong and smooth, rocket fuel in a velvet glove. Is it the coffee or the scene that keeps people coming back?

“I don’t know,” says Heidi. “I think the place just makes them relax.”

Relaxing over a cup of coffee; what a nostalgic and homey concept, conjuring memories that may not even be ours, of long meals at the end of long days, the moon coming up over one more cup. Which makes one think that the coffee at the coffeehouse is almost superfluous; that our stopping in (and no one is making us) perhaps signals a deeper desire for an intersection with a cultural comfort zone, a place where we can spend a minute, or an hour; or pass through with no strings attached, and always receive what we came for.

“So long as it’s hot and brown,” a retiree lolling over a cup with friends was recently heard to say, “I’m happy.”

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Nancy Rommelman is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.